Nickerson girls remain undefeated despite injury

Friday

Jan 11, 2019 at 8:42 PMJan 11, 2019 at 11:38 PM

NICKERSON — The Nickerson Panthers girls’ basketball team continued its undefeated season, despite their star player being sidelined indefinitely.

Morgan Stout, a 6-foot-1 junior averaging 19 points and 9 rebounds a game, wore a brace on her left leg and cheered from the sidelines during Friday’s home game against Lyons (4-5, 0-2). Stout tore her ACL in last week’s game against Andale.

But the Panthers (10-0, 2-0) didn’t seem to miss a beat on offense, en route to a 59-41 victory.

Nickerson outscored the Lions 21-10 in the first quarter.

The Panthers had two scorers in the double figures and two more players with nine points.

“That’s been a strength of our team is we’ve really been balanced scoring,” coach Jon McLean said.

The Panthers had a rebirth last season where they made a state tournament for the first time in 22 years. The 12-10 season was a drastic turnaround from 2013-2015 teams with 51 straight losses.

McLean expects his Panthers to be either the No. 1 or No. 2 seed in the Haven tournament starting on Jan. 24. Cheney High School will be the only other undefeated team at the tournament.

“There will be eight good teams there,” McLean said.

Nickerson 42, Lyons 29

NICKERSON — Connor MacDonald kept the Panthers (5-5, 2-0) out in front with big blocks under the basket.

The 6-foot-7 junior had four blocks in the win at home on against the Lions (3-6, 0-2). Most of the blocks came in the first half and the Panthers held Lyons to 11 points at the break.

The Panthers led 19-11 at the half.

Lyons started the fourth quarter on a 5-0 run by Connor Minix, who finished with eight points. The run cut the Nickerson lead to 30-22 with 4:55 left in the game.

Nickerson’s Cristian Peterson answered back with a bucket and the finished the traditional 3-point play from the line. The Panther fans roared as the home team started a 10-5 run that Peterson ended the same way he started the Panther run.

MacDonald, who finished with 10 points, made the final basket of the game to put the Panthers up 42-29. It was the Panthers lowest scoring game of the season.